The Revolutionary Command Council has arrived in a time of crisis for Syria’s rebels. If it survives its formative period without major splits, it may well establish itself as the new political framework for most of the Syrian opposition.

The refugee influx, fighting along the Lebanese-Syrian border, and the intervention of Lebanese Shia and Sunni Islamists on opposite sides in Syria’s civil war have all contributed greatly to the withering of Lebanon’s already precarious stability.

U.S. fighter jets, bombers, and drones have recently struck several targets in the Sarmada region of Idlib Province in northwest Syria, near the Turkish border. The targets of the attack have proven to be both disputed and controversial.

With the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front consolidating its control over key regions in Idlib, the group now appears to be the single strongest faction in northwestern Syria, shifting the power on the ground.

While the eyes of the world are glued to the U.S.-led intervention against the Islamic State, millions of Syrians suffer from a far more serious problem: they fear that they won’t be able to cook their food or keep the cold out of their homes this winter.

While Turkey is likely to lend assistance to the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State, the recent parliamentary vote won’t trigger any military action by itself. For Turkey, the top priority is not to join the campaign but to leverage it for other purposes.

The “Khorasan Group,” a network affiliated with al-Qaeda, has been a target of recent U.S. bombing in Syria. The sudden flurry of revelations about the group in the past two weeks smacks of strategic leaks and political spin.

Ever since the Islamic State captured vast territories in northern Iraq in mid-June, no group has been more deeply affected by this jihadi civil war than the Nusra Front, which broke off from the Islamic State in April 2013 and has since emerged as Syria’s only official al-Qaeda franchise.

To ask whether the June 3 Syrian presidential election results will lead to any change within the government betrays a misunderstanding of the situation: what just played out in Syria was not an election—it was a demonstration of power in which the presidency was the active subject, rather than the people.

Since the militarization of the Syrian uprising, Raqqa has been a strategically vital region for all armed groups. Now under the control of ISIS, Raqqa has become a hub where ISIS militants are gathered and dispatched to other battlegrounds across the country.

Syria in Crisis provides analysis of the civil war and its impact on the region. Edited by Aron Lund, a researcher who has published extensively on the Syrian opposition, it brings together Carnegie and outside experts.

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